


Rewind, Repeat

by inelegantly (Lir)



Series: SWAG 2016 Fills [21]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Self-cest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6471319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One moment, Akira is across from Hikaru at the goban, playing out a last game before they turn in for bed. The next, he's in a hotel room in a very different time and place.</i>
</p><p>Touya Akira is used to jumping forward and backward in time, experiencing snippets of his own life out of sequence and frequently encountering himself in the future or past. He arrives before a Judan title match he's already played with a script in his head — it's the first time he's slept with himself, and this time, he's the one who knows how everything is going to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind, Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the sports anime winter games, for a prompt that simply asked for Hikaru no Go fic involving time travel. I'm really fond of The Time Traveler's Wife so I chose to borrow from it and its time travel mechanics for this story, but knowledge of the book isn't at all required to understand.

-

One moment, Akira is across from Hikaru at the goban, playing out a last game before they turn in for bed. The next, he's in a hotel room in a very different time and place. 

He catches himself on the mattress after stumbling through his arrival, looking up just in time to be drawn up short staring at... Himself. For an instant surprise flickers across the other Akira's face, but only for that instant. They are both far too used to temporal displacement for a jump to leave them off-balance for long. As places where he could have ended up go, appearing before himself is one of the least objectionable Akira can think of. 

His other self is wearing a light violet suit, paired with a checkered shirt and a tie he is still in the process of tying. A glance around the hotel room — spare, hyper-modern décor, understated and just as familiar as the clothes — confirms it. This is the outfit Akira wore before the Judan title match. This is the morning before the first game. 

"Ah," he says softly to himself. "I remember this." 

"That makes one of us," other-Akira says, and he remembers that, too. "Do you have anything else to tell me?" 

"We're stressed about the match," Akira says. "Because we're playing against Ogata-san, and he'd been making snide comments all through dinner last night. Don't worry about the match. Play thoughtfully. We're going to win." 

"Win the title?" other-him asks, too carefully. 

"Win the match," Akira says. "You know that we shouldn't tell each other everything." 

He watches his own face frown at that, mouth creasing down to a thin line of disapproval. Lately this has been happening more and more — making small jumps through time, traveling no more than a year or two in either direction. It's different from when he was younger, jumping far into the future or well into the past, watching his father play key games before he ever became the Meijin, watching his mother struggle not to cry at his father's funeral even as he, only twelve years old, scrambled to get out of sight. 

Akira doesn't know what it means, that he's moving around in time less but converging on himself more often. Sometimes Hikaru will tell him that he saw older-Akira once over breakfast, and then younger-Akira just after lunch, and it takes all of Akira's carefully employed rationality to resist becoming jealous of _himself_ for having this time with Hikaru when Akira of the present is overloaded with event planning and other work.

It isn't that Akira dislikes himself, but he could stand to see less of his displaced alternatives. 

"How long are you here for?" other-him asks, when he's swallowed his distaste over being the less informed party. "Do you remember?" 

"Not long," Akira says. "Only a half hour or so. But I remember that we had a thought on how to pass the time, from when I was you." 

That earns him a sharp-eyed, critical stare, before he looks pointedly toward the bed standing alone in the room and his other-self entirely catches his meaning. Akira watches the flare-up of indignation blossom across his own face, remembering only then that _this is the first time._

"We want to pretend it's Shindou," he says, so softly, willing to admit it only because _he_ has had the real thing, because he's speaking to a ghost of himself and knows that his words are incapable of going beyond the room. "And we know that if anyone can challenge us as much as he will, it's another version of ourself." 

There's another flicker of outrage that passes across other-Akira's face, but it's quashed just as quickly. That Akira remembers most intimately of all, the stab in his gut from being told something he doesn't want to hear, something he didn't want to acknowledge, but from a source removed from any possibility of doubt. If he cannot trust himself, what is there to believe in, in the world?

"Pretend I'm Shindou," Akira says again, knowing gut-deep the script that's been laid out for him and bracing already for the storm that will come of it. "If I were him, we know exactly what you would do to me." 

His other self surges forward, taking him by the front of his shirt and pulling him in. Memory floods him with a rich awareness of being unsure _himself_ whether he wants to rear back and strike the face that's present before him, or whether he wants to kiss it for the totem it represents. For a moment, remembrance means nothing to him, and he flinches before the belief that he is about to be punched. 

Then a mouth is upon him, furious with its desire, biting his lips and thrusting its tongue past his teeth. 

Akira knows what Hikaru would do, and only kisses his younger self back harder. His hands rise to claw into the back of the suit jacket, gripping great fistfuls of the fabric and using that hold to pull them closer together. Their knees bump, legs slotting in between each other, hips butting up against hips as they push at each other and as Akira backs his double toward the bed. He's so consumed with kissing that he doesn't realize where he's been pushed until his knees hit the mattress, until Akira tips him over onto his back.

Akira breaks away for a moment, breathless and with lips bruised from pressure, staring down into his own face gone sharp and unfamiliar with _longing._ He wants what Akira has, _knows_ instinctively that the "him" he's gripping has already attained their secret, selfish goal. His eyes are bright and fierce as he grips Akira tight by the arms, as he rolls him over so his back slams hard into the bed. 

Akira gasps, and finds — almost to his own surprise — that he's smiling. 

It's not a pleasant look, sharp-edged with superiority, is irritating enough that his other self growls in disapproval and dives on him again. That kiss is rougher still, messy with misplaced desire and clumsier yet from inexperience, other-him's mouth smearing against his even as familiar hips bear down against his hips. He can feel the hardness of his double's cock pressing against his thigh through the fabric of lilac suit pants, and can't help but laugh against the mouth doing its best to devour his own. 

"I think he likes it," Akira says, voice bright and amused with the memory of how much it had maddened _him_ to hear, "when we do this. You wouldn't think so, but it's always us pushing him around, shoving him into bed, and it's always Shindou laughing the whole way down, pulling us onto him like a challenge." 

"In that case," his double says back, "you do a better impression of him than I thought you would." 

Akira laughs again, this time sincerely startled, caught more off-guard by that than he'd thought he'd be. His double grabs for his pants, working them open and shoving his hands inside. They're less rough against his cock than Akira might have expected — _definitely_ less rough than from his memory of doing this himself — and he pushes his hips up, remembering how responsive Hikaru is to being touched this way in bed. 

"Don't leave me to have all the fun," he says, reaching up to undo his double's pants in better mirror. When he pulls out other-him's cock, their knuckles brush, and it's only a moment before his hand is being thrust away.

"I'll handle it," he's told, with conviction he recognizes to his core. 

His other self bears down against him, rutting against his cock where it's pushed against his double's hand. It's messy, more inspiration than intention, and though there are a few nice moments of friction it's less satisfying than either of them would like. Before Akira can reach to correct this, his double wraps his hand about both of them and begins jerking them off, quick and tight. 

His hips shift and his breath hitches, but his eyes can't help but focus on the familiar configuration of his own features, intense with concentration and completely unaware of his watching. Akira is entirely free to study himself — at least in between too-tight squeezes around his cock that distract him with gasping — is able to witness, like an out of body experience, his own single-minded focus on a task. 

Other-him is breathing harder, outright shaking as he pushes his hips into his hand, and he is the one who finishes first, coming over the hem of Akira's shirt. It's with a drawn-out moan that ends in a soft, satisfied gasp, which is followed by Akira's double jerking back and away from him even before the warmth of his afterglow could have settled into his bones. 

"At least we don't do that the first time we sleep with Shindou," Akira says tartly, reaching down to curl his own fingers back around his cock. 

It's mechanical, the way he pulls himself off. All the energy of pushing at himself, goading his other self, has left with his double's disengagement from the game. There's no appeal in touching himself in that moment, but he does it until he comes against his own palm, before immediately rolling toward the small table beside the bed and the package of hotel tissues he knows will be waiting in the drawer. 

"Why did we want to do this?" he hears, before there's shifting on the bed and his other self has slid his legs off to rest feet on the floor. "Now that I've done it, I'm... I can't imagine what had possessed us." 

"I didn't understand, either," Akira says, offering other-him a tissue of his own. "Until after I played in today's match." 

"We don't regret this, then." 

"No. After all, isn't it the case that both of us will make any sacrifice, in pursuit of better Go?" 

Other-him laughs, a brief, startled sound. The silence that follows it is pensive, like he's turning those words over but is unable to deny their reality. Finally he admits it aloud: "Of course. There is nothing more important." 

"We're almost out of time," Akira tells him, rather than replying. "Good luck, in the title match." 

"Isn't it improper to tell a player 'good luck'?" he's asked in return. 

"Ordinarily," Akira agrees, as he stands from the bed and pursues a final round of straightening his clothing into its usual, proper order. "I believe we both concluded that in cases like this, where we know the outcome, it's only polite." 

He doesn't know what his double says to him in return. Another moment and he's once again gone. 

-

-


End file.
